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Lara Almarcegui April 17 – May 16, 2010 Exhibition Opening: Friday, April 16, 6–8pm Opening Hours: Friday – Sunday, 1–6pm and by appointment
Ludlow 38 European Kunsthalle Cologne Goethe-Institut New York proudly presents Lara Almarcegui’s first solo exhibition in the US, featuring Guide to the Wastelands of Flushing River, a new commissioned project, produced during several visits to New York City. Lara Almarcegui, Guide to the Wastelands of Flushing River, 2010
Lara Almarcegui’s research-based work focuses on the varying realities underlying built environments and how excess and absence are manifested in urban design. For this exhibition the artist has explored the urban and environmental fabric of New York City. In a new work with two components, Almarcegui surveys currently unused areas along Flushing River in Queens. Flushing River is only four miles long, but its exploitation has generated a number of spaces currently not used for any particular purposes. Some of these wastelands are now slated for regeneration as natural reserves, parks or residential areas however many of them still offer possibilities to observe processes of decay and wilderness.
The publication Guide to the Wastelands of Flushing River contains photographs from 12 sites in Queens accompanied by concise descriptions that outline the locations’ history, present state and future. Visitors are invited to pick up a copy and explore these sites at their own leisure. A slide installation presents a selection of photographs taken during Almarcegui’s excursions along Flushing River, from its original source via Willow Lake and Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the site for the 1939 and the 1964 World’s Fairs, to its estuary at Flushing Bay.
The gallery also offers access to a variety of material pertaining to Almarcegui’s work-in-progress Going Down Into a Tunnel Excavation. The expected outcome of this piece is the organization of a guided tour to ongoing or recently accomplished excavations in the city.
In counterpoint to these new projects a group of earlier works are presented. For Construction Materials Sao Paulo City (2006) Almarcegui computed official data on how much building material was used in the city of São Paulo for its buildings (commercial, residential, institutional and industrial), shantytowns, streets and subway system. Exploring the Floor, Sala Moncada, Fundación La Caixa, Barcelone (2003) is a slide projection documenting the removal and reinstallation of a stone floor in an exhibition venue.
Lara Almarcegui was born in 1972 in Zaragoza, Spain, and lives in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She has exhibited widely, e.g. at the Liverpool Biennial in 2004, the São Paulo Biennial in 2006, the Gwangju and Taipei Biennials in 2008 and the Ramallah and Athens Biennials in 2009. Recent solo exhibitions include Ruins in the Netherlands at Ellen de Bruijne Gallery, Amsterdam / Pepe Cobo, Madrid, and Bilbao Wastelands at Sala Rekalde in Bilbao, both in 2008.
With Lara Almarcegui’s first solo exhibition in the US, the European Kunsthalle Cologne concludes its curatorial collaboration with Ludlow 38, continuing the emphasis on both the discursive potential of contemporary art and the institutional effort to enable new productions. After Kunstverein München and the European Kunsthalle Cologne, the next curatorial partner for Ludlow 38 will be Künstlerhaus Stuttgart. _
Ludlow 38 is sponsored by MINI and Friends of Goethe. This exhibition has received additional support from the State Corporation for Spanish Cultural Action Abroad (SEACEX) and the Directorate General For Cultural And Scientific Relations. Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. _
Ludlow 38 European Kunsthalle Cologne Goethe-Institut New York, 38 Ludlow Street (between Grand and Hester), New York 10002 Tel. +1 212 2228 6848 www.ludlow38.org info(at)ludlow38.org By Subway: J/M/Z and F to Essex/Delancey; F to East Broadway; B/D to Grand Street. Deimnatas Narkevičius, "Into the Unknown", 2009.
Into the Unknown brings together works by artists and filmmakers who reflect upon and make productive use of archival film footage and other material from the past. The works focus on how such stored images are received and interpreted today, not just on the circumstances in which they were once produced. In their hands the archive becomes a journey into unknown territories, but at the same time it is always reconfigured according to today's interests and perspectives. Paradoxically, the constructed past that these artists excavate from the archive radiates a presence rivaling that of the present moment. The works presented in the gallery at Ludlow 38 and during screenings at the Goethe-Institut’s Wyoming Building open up new pockets of time that allow us to observe the past, and the communities that lived in it, at our own leisure. At the same time they set up spaces for future agency. The exhibition encompasses topics such as social uprising, official versions of everyday routines, the disappearance of political systems and the individual’s relationship to society and to collective memory.
The show borrows its title from Lithuanian artist Deimantas Narkevičius’s latest film Into the Unknown (2009), which depicts everyday life in the German Democratic Republic. When commissioned to produce a new piece from the National Archive's ETV Collection of socialist propaganda films at the British Film Institute, Narkevičius decided to re-edit different clips of existing films and sounds, thus restoring existential weight to these cinematic representations of really existing socialism.
Also shown in the gallery at Ludlow 38, Mariana Silva’s Archive for the Permanence of Image, Functional Model (2008) takes as a starting point Super 8mm footage from the time of the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974, culled from archives in her native Portugal. Silva has reworked the films into an installation that comprises various material presented on moviolas: a demonstration of construction workers besieging Lisbon’s São Bento palace, a Sunday of volunteer work cleaning of public monuments, separatist protests by inhabitants of the Azores islands.
On March 1, the evening before the exhibition opens at Ludlow 38, Dublin-based American artist Sarah Pierce will give an artist talk at the Goethe-Institut’s Wyoming Building. The presentation will look at the relation between performer and audience and deals with the artist’s interest in conversations. Since 2003 Pierce has used an umbrella term, The Metropolitan Complex, to describe her practice which uses archives, exhibitions and papers - often opening these structures up to the personal and the incidental.
Film screenings at the Wyoming Building continue the exhibition off-site. They include Russian artist Dmitry Gutov’s film Lifshitz Institute (2004) about the Marxist art critic Mikhail Lifshitz and the contradictory reception of his writings in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia as well as in the West throughout the 20th century. Also featured are two Portuguese films, João Dias’s As Operações SAAL (2009) and António Cunha Telles’s Continuar a Viver (1975), portraying the unique efforts of a radical experiment in participatory architecture in Portugal. Please find the dates and details on the screenings at www.ludlow38.org.
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Next event: Screening by Dmitry Gutov, “Lifshitz Institute”, 2004–2005, 45 min Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building (5 East 3rd Street, corner Bowery), March 18, 7pm Introduction: Alfredo Jaar, New York
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João Dias is a Portuguese film director and the author of As Operações SAAL, which won the MIDAS prize at DocLisboa 2009. He is the author of documentaries and a short fiction film for Dance Company Clara Andermatt and is currently preparing a documentary on tourism in the south of Portugal.
Dmitry Gutov’s recent exhibitions include the Third Moscow Biennale of contemporary art, Moscow; documenta 12, Kassel, Germany; Thaw: Russian Art. From Glasnost to the Present, Chelsea Art Museum, New York; La 52 Biennale di Venezia, Venice; Repetition, Canon, Comeback, Deceleration, Stupor, The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. He lives and works in Moscow.
Deimantas Narkevičius’s solo exhibitions include Brandts Kunsthalle, Odense (2010); BFI Southbank Gallery, British Film Institute, London; Kunsthalle Bern; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (all 2009) and Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2008). He lives and works in Vilnius.
Sarah Pierce is one of six commissioned artists working with the Dutch platform If I Can't Dance I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution. Recent projects include: It's time man. It feels imminent, ICA, London 2008 (subsequent chapters at de Appel Amsterdam and FOUR Dublin); The question would be the answer to the question Are you happy?, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao 2009; An artwork in the third person, Project, Dublin 2009. In 2005 she represented Ireland at the 51st Venice Biennale.
Mariana Silva was one of the winners of BES Revelação prize (Serralves Museum, Porto, 2008) and is currently on a residency at ISCP in Brooklyn, NY. Her article The Escape Route’s Design (with Pedro Neves Marques) was published by e-flux journal in May 2009.
António Cunha Telles is a Portuguese film director and producer with a large number of productions since the early 1960’s.
Ludlow 38 is sponsored by MINI and Friends of Goethe
Ludlow 38 European Kunsthalle Cologne Goethe Institut New York 38 Ludlow Street Between Grand and Hester New York 10002 USA
Tel. +1 212 2228 6848 www.ludlow38.org
subway: J/M/Z and F to Essex/ Delancey & F to East Broadway & B/D to Grand Street
ART SALE TO BENEFIT THE EUROPEAN KUNSTHALLE How could it be different? Clearly the financial crisis also – and especially – casts a shadow on the uncertain field of contemporary art. Due to this, further activities and plans of the European Kunsthalle are now in jeopardy. For this reason we are especially pleased about the renewed generous support of artists and gallerists. Thea Djordjaze, Robert Elfgen, Albert Oehlen (Christian Nagel Gallery), Jürgen Stollhans, Johannes Wohnseifer and Peter Zimmermann have once again donated to us works of art. The proceeds of the sales of these works will contribute to supporting the future projects of the European Kunsthalle.
Thea Djordjadze untitled, 2009 (Edition) Jürgen Stollhans Lamprey, 2009 (Sonderedition) Albert Oehlen untitled, 1998 Robert Elfgen Ich und Es, 2008 Johannes Wohnseifer Geld, 2009 Peter Zimmermann untitled 2008, table
Pictures and further information European Society, Aktuell |
Since August 2009 European Kunsthalle curates the exhibition program at Ludlow 38 / Goethe Institute New York. 38 Ludlow Street between Grand and Hester New York 10002 Tel.: +1 212 228 6848 www.ludlow38.org
Opening hours: Friday – Sunday 1–6 pm and by appointment
More information at Ludlow 38 / European Kunsthalle
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